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Oregon Supreme Court upholds governor’s reprieve for death-row inmate who wants to die

June 20, 2013   http://www.startribune.com

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber can delay the lethal injection of a death-row inmate who wants to waive his appeals and speed his execution, the state’s highest court ruled Thursday.

The Oregon Supreme Court said Kitzhaber did not overstep his power when he granted a reprieve delaying the death sentence of Gary Haugen, who was convicted of two murders.

Kitzhaber opposes the death penalty and intervened weeks before Haugen was scheduled to be executed in 2011. The governor said he refused to allow an execution under a state death-penalty system he views as broken, vowing to block any execution during his term in office.

Haugen challenged Kitzhaber’s clemency, saying the reprieve was invalid because Haugen refused to accept it. He also argued that it wasn’t actually a reprieve but rather an illegal attempt by the governor to nullify a law he didn’t like.

The governor argued that his clemency power is absolute, and nobody — certainly not an inmate on death row — can prevent him from doing what he believes to be in the state’s best interest.

Kitzhaber has urged a statewide vote on abolishing the death penalty, although the Legislature has shown little interest in putting it on the ballot in 2014. He renewed his request after the ruling Thursday, saying capital punishment “has devolved into an unworkable system that fails to meet the basic standards of justice.”

“I am still convinced that we can find a better solution that holds offenders accountable and keeps society safe, supports the victims of crime and their families and reflects Oregon values,” Kitzhaber said in a statement.

The case involved a sparsely explored area of law — how much power the governor has to reduce, delay or eliminate criminal sentences. The justices had very little precedent to guide their decision, and neither lawyer could point to any other case where an inmate challenged an unconditional reprieve that spared him from the death penalty.

Haugen was sentenced to death along with an accomplice in 2007 for the jailhouse murder of a fellow inmate. At the time, Haugen was serving a life sentence for fatally beating his former girlfriend’s mother in 1981.

Americans and their elected representatives have expressed mixed feelings about the death penalty. Lawmakers abolished capital punishment in New Mexico, New Jersey and Connecticut, but Californians turned down a chance to follow suit at the ballot box last year.

In 2000, then-Gov. George Ryan of Illinois issued a moratorium on the death penalty after numerous condemned inmates were exonerated. The Legislature abolished capital punishment more than a decade later.

Jury decides gang member should be executed for killing 4 people – Charles Ray Smith

June 10 2013, Los Angeles Times

Gang member sentenced to death

 

Jurors decided Monday that a gang member should be executed for the slaying of four people, including a 10-year-old boy gunned down from close range as he rode his bicycle along a quiet South Los Angeles street.

Charles Ray Smith, 44, stared straight ahead and showed no emotion as the verdict was read in a downtown courtroom.

Smith was convicted during a previous trial of taking part in two deadly shootings in 2006, including one that became known as the “49th Street Massacre” in which two men wielding AK-47s opened fire on children and adults enjoying a Friday summer afternoon.

Sergio Marcial Sr., whose son and brother were among those killed, said the trials in the case had taken an emotional toll on him and his family. He said one of the most painful moments during the legal proceedings was seeing an autopsy photograph of his slain son.

His oldest son, who was 12 at the time, was seriously wounded in the attack and had to repeatedly recount his ordeal in court.

“I’m glad that we can move on and not worry about going and hearing how my son got killed — and my brother and my neighbor,” Marcial said. “I’m glad that it’s over.”

Defense attorney James Cooper said he and his colleague, James Bisnow, knew the case would be difficult given the age of the victims and the fact that none had any gang ties. Bisnow noted that his client has gone through four trials, including one in which a jury deadlocked on whether Smith was guilty and two more that could not decide if he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

“It was an unprecedented fourth trial, which is extremely costly to the taxpayer and was unjustified in view of the mitigating evidence,” Bisnow said.

The brutality of the 49th Street killings shocked a city long used to gang violence. The shooting was one of several high-profile gang crimes that stoked fears among some of a possible race war. Witnesses described the gunmen as black; the victims were Latino.

But prosecutors have argued that race had little to do with the killings and that Smith and another man, Ryan T. Moore, mistook the victims for rival gang members in a tit-for-tat feud over turf, drugs and pride. Moore was convicted during a separate trial and sentenced to death.

Smith’s attorneys urged the jury last week to spare their client, arguing that there was a lingering doubt that he was involved in the killings. They said jurors should also consider a variety of disorders from which Smith suffers, including post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by his upbringing. They said his afflictions warped Smith’s view of the world, impaired his logic and made him react impulsively.

Smith, they said, was raised by parents who were heavy drinkers when he was a child and who were addicted to crack cocaine when he was a teenager. All four of his brothers ended up in jail or prison, the attorneys told jurors during closing arguments.

The lawyers also noted that many of Smith’s relatives testified that he was a loving father who encouraged his children to do well in school.

But Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Amy Ashvanian described Smith in court as a gang shot-caller who showed no remorse for his crimes. She said Smith told an associate after the 49th Street shooting: “If they’re old enough to shoot, they’re old enough to get shot.”

Smith’s killings, Ashvanian said, began in March 2006 after an incident in which a rival gang member in a green sedan shot at one of Smith’s friends. In response, Smith used an AK-47 to shoot Bani Hinojosa, 27, in the back. Hinojosa, a construction worker who had been sitting in his green sedan, was bringing milk home to his wife and daughters. He had no gang ties and had nothing to do with the earlier shooting involving Smith’s friend.

The victims of the 49th Street shooting on June 30, 2006, were David Marcial, 10; his uncle, Larry Marcial, 22; and Luis Cervantes, a 17-year-old neighbor. David’s brother, Sergio Marcial Jr., was seriously wounded. He and David had been riding their bicycles on the sidewalk outside their home.

Maribel Marcial, David’s aunt and Larry’s sister, said she and her family would have accepted a verdict of life in prison for Smith but were gratified by the jury’s decision.

“It is the beginning of healing for all my family,” she said after the verdict. “We’re all going to die. But in this matter, he’s going to pay for what he did. He’s going to know the reason that he is dying.”

The horrifying existence of solitary confinement by James Simmons

Imagine being locked in a cage alone for 22 ½ hours a day, sometimes for decades on end, with no normal human contact ever and no exposure to direct sunlight ever. Now imagine that during this terrible experience you were subjected to being shot with an assault rifle and dumped in a cell covered with fecal matter until you had an aneurysm – or held down in a scalding hot bath until you received third degree burns all over your body. This isn’t Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib … it’s California.

 

Todd Ashker's cell PBSP SHU-1 outside front 0707, web

Todd Ashker, one of the four “main reps,” leaders of the campaign to end solitary confinement in California through peaceful protest – the 2011 hunger strikes and another set to begin July 8 unless the prisoners’ Five Core Demands are met as promised – lived in this cell from the time Pelican Bay State Prison opened until last year, when, as punishment, he was moved away from the other main reps. They have persevered, however, and prisoners across California and the U.S. are making plans for peaceful protests.

The state of California calls them Security Housing Units (SHUs), and over 3,000 prisoners are warehoused in facilities like this1 (up to 80,000 in the U.S. total2). The majority of these prisons have no windows, computers or telephone calls. Showers are typically once a week, mail is withheld regularly, meals are pushed through a slot in the front of their cell, and there is no work or rehabilitation of any kind provided.

A major reason this type of inhumane treatment continues to exist is the common misconception that the average citizen has about who is being housed in these facilities. This is most likely because of the government’s propaganda campaign that consists of claims that these solitary confinement units are only for the “worst of the worst.”

 

The truth of the matter is that there are many prisoners with no record of violence in the outside world in these facilities and that these same solitary confinement techniques are being used on adolescents in juvenile facilities as well. Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit in Crescent City, California, is widely considered by prisoners as the worst facility for solitary confinement in the state, and experts have called it the worst prison in the United States.

 

Over a thousand prisoners are warehoused in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) and are never given access to direct sunlight, let alone the right to go outside. The rare occasions that they get visitors – as the prison’s location is extremely isolated as well – it is limited to an hour and a half and there is a glass screen separating them.

 

In fact, prisoners are not only separated from the outside world but within the prison itself, as barriers are put in place for medical visits and to protect all other correctional staff. This kind of isolation that consists of always being inside under artificial light and being alone in a small cage 22 ½ hours a day – for multiple decades in some cases – has severe psychological implications.

 

Stuart Grassian, a Harvard psychiatrist specializing in solitary confinement, found that the effects of this type of confinement included trouble with thinking, perception, impulse control, memory, hallucinations and stimuli.3 It was considered after only a couple of weeks of solitary confinement to be “psychological torture.” The culmination of this treatment of prisoners and their conditions at Pelican Bay State Prison led to Amnesty International concluding that the facility was in violation of international law.4

 

If the intention of the prison system is rehabilitation so when prisoners are released they do not return, then we surely must object to solitary confinement.

 

This extremist version of solitary confinement employed by PBSP will therefore inevitably effect our greater society within the United States, as these inmates develop a gamut of mental illnesses that go untreated before being released back into the general population of the outside world. The “supposed” purpose of the prison system in this nation is to rehabilitate, but these SHU facilities do nothing of the sort and instead just inflict severe psychological damage on prisoners who will most likely be released at some point.

 

Prison officials at PBSP claim that the SHU facility is intended to keep their other prisons safer from gang violence, yet this kind of violence is still on the rise in California’s prison system, and the SHU is also filled with political prisoners with no gang affiliation who are only guilty of organizing within their respective prisons. This has led to the Center for Constitutional Rights filing a lawsuit against the entire California prison system for their use of long term solitary confinement, claiming it is a form of torture and therefore illegal. To put this all in perspective, solitary confinement was utilized in the 19th century as a form of self-reproach but was abandoned after concerns about the psychological effects of such treatment.5

 

Vaughn Dortch was convicted of petty thievery, got into fights in prison, and was then sent to Pelican Bay State Prison SHU unit. Upon several months of extreme solitary confinement, he began to deteriorate psychologically and covered himself in feces. He was then forced to take a bath in scalding hot water and held down against his will by guards until receiving third degree burns all over his body. Medics refused to give him any pain medication for thirty minutes and the head doctor even went as far as saying that he was not burned. Only one individual was found culpable and fired, while no mechanisms were put in place to prevent an incident like this from occurring again.6

 

Todd Ashker's cell PBSP SHU-2 inside back bunk area 0707, web

This is the inside of the cell where Todd Ashker lived for 25 years. The bunk, which he used as a desk in the daytime, stretches across the back wall. His rolled-up mattress became his chair.

Todd Ashker was convicted of burglary and sentenced to six years in prison. Upon entering the prison system, he got into an altercation with another prisoner over a debt and murdered him. According to Ashker, it was self-defense.

When an individual commits murder in prison when serving only a six year sentence, it can be argued that the defensive nature one must maintain within this type of system might be at least partially culpable. An anonymous informant told prison officials that Todd Ashker’s murder was connected to the Aryan Brotherhood and as a result of this he was also sent to Pelican Bay State Prison SHU unit, where those who commit violent acts in prison or have gang affiliations are sent.

 

While serving time there, Ashker got into another altercation; there are two versions of what happened, the state’s version and Ashker’s. According to Ashker, prison guards set him up for a “gladiator style” fight and when things escalated out of control, he was shot with an assault rifle by a guard in the wrist. His wound nearly severed his hand from his arm and he was immediately dumped into a urine and feces covered cell without medical treatment. Lack of sufficient medical treatment then and afterward resulted in Ashker getting an aneurysm in his wound.

 

The state of California’s official story was that they broke up a fight between Ashker and another inmate and that he was warned multiple times before being shot. The Department of Corrections also denies dumping him in a filthy cell and that lack of decent medical treatment resulted in his aneurysm. A couple of questions come to mind when evaluating the state’s official story.

 

How was Ashker allowed so close to another inmate, when he is supposedly in severe solitary confinement with little to no contact with anyone but prison officials? If the state’s story is so accurate, then why was Ashker awarded $225,000 in a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections in a state notoriously tough on criminals? “In this tough-on-crime attitude here in California, it’s always the case that jurors don’t want to give a criminal one red cent, so there must have been something that went on there at Pelican Bay,” said San Francisco attorney Herman Franck.7 These are the kinds of horrendous altercations that occur at Pelican Bay State Prison on top of the psychological torture endured by inmates for years and sometimes decades on end.

 

 If we believe in basic human rights and dignity for all human beings, then we surely must object to solitary confinement.

 

The only way to get out of the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison is to “debrief” – or tell prison officials everything you know about the prison gang you have been “validated” to belong to. The only problem is that “debriefing” results in the prisoner putting himself in tremendous danger of being killed once he is back in the general prison population. Because of this California leads the nation in long-term solitary confinement.

 

Another problematic aspect of these procedures is the process of “validating” gang members. The gang “validation” process has been criticized because it can occur without evidence of any specific illegal activity and heavily rely on anonymous informants, which is circumstantial and almost impossible to repudiate. In Ashker’s case, he has denied ties to the Aryan Brotherhood and has never been convicted of committing an illegal gang-related crime. If he is telling the truth, then how on earth is he supposed to “debrief” – even if he wanted to?

 

As a result of this quagmire and the horrendous conditions that Todd Ashker has had to endure for 26 years – 26 years of no direct sunlight or normal contact with human beings – he has decided to organize to end solitary confinement. Todd has filed lawsuits, organized hunger strikes and, most impressively, a call for a mutually agreed upon ending to hostilities between races and ethnicities in the California prison system.

 

According to this agreement, California prisoners will end group racial violence against one another and will force the prison system to provide rehabilitation programs and end solitary confinement – as they will have no other excuse left not to. It is these incredible circumstances and tortuous conditions that can lead groups that compete, hate and kill each other to find solidarity in a mutual struggle. For these incredible efforts, Todd says he has been refused proper medical care and given a plexiglas cellfront cover that makes his tiny cell incredibly hot, restricts air flow and makes it almost impossible to communicate.

 

What it all seems to come down to is whether or not the citizens of California feel it is worth psychologically torturing people for years – and in some cases decades – in order to keep the prison system safer, a claim debunked by the increase in prison violence since SHUs’ inception. If we object to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, we surely must object to solitary confinement in the U.S.

 

If the intention of the prison system is rehabilitation so when prisoners are released they do not return, then we surely must object to solitary confinement. If we believe in basic human rights and dignity for all human beings, then we surely must object to solitary confinement. We must also ask ourselves, would I want a friend or family member to be broken down psychologically and tortured for decades by the state?

 

If we object to Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, we surely must object to solitary confinement in the U.S.

 

A society will be remembered by how it treats the most vulnerable and least advantaged individuals within it. Do we want to be remembered for slowly driving people insane for no reason?

 

James Simmons, a graduate student at the California Institute of Integral Studies studying prison activism with Anthropology Department Chair Andrej Grubacic, can be reached at james@alternativeoutlook.org.

 

 

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FLORIDA – UPCOMING EXECUTION MARSHALL GORE – JUNE 24 2013 – STAYED

Characteristics: Rape – Robberies
Number of victims: 2
Date of murder: January 31/March 11, 1988
Date of arrest: March 17, 1988
Date of birth: August 17, 1963
Victim profile: Susan Roark / Robyn Novick
Method of murder: Stabbing with knife – Strangulation
Location: Columbia County, Florida, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on April 3, 1990

June 24, 2013

Convicted killer Marshall Lee Gore received a stay of execution just 30 minutes for his scheduled death Thursday evening.

It would have been the state’s third execution of the month.

Gore is the former owner of a South Florida escort service who was scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m.

Gore was convicted of the 1988 killing of Robyn Novick, a 30-year-old exotic dancer whose naked body was found in a rural part of Miami-Dade County. Gore also was sentenced to die for the slaying that same year of Susan Roark, whose body was found in Columbia County in northern Florida.

Besides the two death sentences, Gore was given seven life sentences and another 110 years in a case involving the attempted murder of a third woman. That attempt led to Gore’s arrest; he was convicted of stealing the woman’s red Toyota, which the FBI tracked to another state.

Gore’s execution will end a bizarre case. During his trial, Gore laughed, cursed and howled at the prosecution and even his own defense.

At one point Gore’s frustrated attorney turned to him and said, “He deserves to die.”

That led the Florida Supreme Court in 1988 to stay Gore’s execution, ruling that the attorney exceeded proper conduct and professionalism. A year later, though, Gore was retried and re-convicted and again sentenced to death.

Florida has had two other executions within the past month. On June 12, the state executed William Van Poyck for the 1987 murder of a prison guard during a botched attempt to free another inmate, and on May 29, Elmer Carroll was executed for the 1990 rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl.

The execution of Marshall Lee Gore is once again scheduled for 6 pm EDT, on June 24, 2013, at the Florida State Prison in Raiford, Florida.Forty-nine-year-old Marshall is scheduled to be executed for the murder of 30-year-old Robyn Novick on March 11, 1988, in Columbia County, Florida.Marshall has spent the past 23 years on death row.

On May 23, 2013, Florida Governor Rick Scott granted a temporary stay of execution to Marshall after his lawyer claimed he was insane and therefore ineligible for execution.The stay was lifted after a three-doctor commission examined Marshall and found him to be mentally competent and eligible for execution.After the doctors presented their findings to Governor Scott, the stay was lifted.Marshall’s execution will be carried out as originally planned.

On March 16, 1988, police were searching Dade County, Florida area for a missing juvenile.A police officer noticed a blue tarp on the ground.Under it was the remains of a female, later identified through dental records as Robyn Novick.She was naked, with a silver belt around her neck and a lace cloth around her left ankle.An autopsy discovered that she had been strangled and stabbed through the heart and lung.All were fatal injuries.

Upon investigation, police discovered that on Friday, March 11, 1988, a girl wearing a black dress with a silver belt was seen at a local bar around 8 pm.She was driving a yellow Corvette and had a male passenger.A night manager identified Robyn as the female and Marshall Gore as the passenger.Both were identified through a photo lineup.

Between 10 and 11 pm, a yellow Corvette was seen parked on the street in front of a house where Gore was staying with friends.The house was “within a few hundred feet” of where Robyn’s body was found.Another resident of the house acknowledged seeing the yellow Corvette around 2 am.Gore then left the house and returned a short time later, saying he had been in a car accident.Keys to the yellow Corvette were later found in the house.Gore then sought shelter at a different friend’s house, saying the police were looking for him and that he had been involved in a car accident while driving a yellow Corvette.

Police were called to the scene of a car crash involving a yellow Corvette.The occupants were missing when the police arrived.The vehicle bore the vanity tag “Robyn N,” and inside the vehicle was a gold cigarette case with the initials RGN, various credit cards and a Florida’s driver license.The credit cards and the driver’s license both bore the name Robyn G. Novick.

Gore was arrested on March 17, 1988, in Paducah, Kentucky, driving the stolen vehicle of Tina Coralis, a woman who had survived an attempted murder by Gore.Tina’s case and Robyn’s case shared many similarities.Gore denied murdering Robyn, claiming he did not know her.He also claims he was not responsible for Tina’s injuries as they occurred when she jumped out of a moving car.Gore was convicted and the jury recommended the death penalty by a vote of 12 to 0.

During Gore’s trial, evidence was presented linking him to the murder of Susan Roark.He was later convicted for her murder and received a second death penalty.Susan and Robyn’s murders shared many similarities, along with his attempted murder of Tina Coralis.All three were stabbed and choked before being abandoned.Gore was also known to have been in possession of all three victims’ cars, after the victims went missing.

In addition to two death sentences, Gore has received seven life sentences for kidnappings, sexual batteries with a weapon or force, and robbery with a gun or deadly weapon.Gore has also received 110 years for various attempted murder, rape, and theft convictions.

murderpedia opinion’s source

Supreme Court of Florida
opinion 75955 opinion 86249
opinion SC96127 opinion SC01-1524
opinion 05-1848

James Lewis DeRosa – Oklahoma Execution – June 18, 2013 -EXECUTED 6:07 pm

https://i0.wp.com/i1203.photobucket.com/albums/bb388/cncp66/cncp66-1/off_lookup-16.jpgConvicted and sentenced to death in the murders of Curtis and Gloria Plummer. DeRosa and co-defendant then robbed them, stabbed them, and cut their throats, leaving them dead on the floor. DeRosa and Castleberry then stole approximately $73 and left in the Plummers’ 1998 Chevrolet pickup truck. The Plummers knew DeRosa, because he had previously worked for them on their ranch. He and Castleberry were apparently allowed into the home, which had a security system, on the pretense of looking for a further work opportunity.

DeRosa has been on death row since December 10, 2001.

Two-time killer executed at OSP

By Rachel Petersen, The McAlester News-Capital

McALESTER — A two-time convicted killer, and death row inmate at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, was executed via lethal injection Tuesday evening in the prison’s death chamber.

James Lewis DeRosa, 36, was convicted Oct. 19, 2001, of two counts of first-degree murder and was subsequently sentenced to death.

DeRosa did not make any last requests prior to his execution, this includes a last meal request. At around noon Tuesday, he was offered a meal, one that was being served to the entire inmate population, and he denied accepting the food, according to Terry Crenshaw, OSP warden’s assistant.

DeRosa’a execution began at 6:01 p.m. When the blinds between the execution chamber and the witness room were raised, DeRosa did not turn his head. He stared up at the ceiling. OSP Warden Anita Trammell asked him if he had any last words and DeRosa said, “No Ma’am.”

Trammell then said, “Let the execution begin.”

DeRosa blinked a number of times before he began to breath heavily. He had one last long exhale and his eyelids stopped blinking. The color began to drain from his face and he was pronounced dead by an attending physician at 6:07 p.m.

Members of the victim’s family spoke after DeRosa’s execution was complete. “This is not about DeRosa,” said Janet Tolbert, whose parents were murdered by DeRosa. “This is about Curtis and Gloria Plummer.” Tolbert said her family is glad that justice has finally been served. She said her parents suffered a “horrendous” death. “Nothing compared to that light death” DeRosa just had, she said.

Tolbert and her daughter, Dana Gilliam, both wore white t-shirts with pictures of the Plummers printed on the front.

Witnessing DeRosa’s execution were five members of the media, 13 members of the victim’s family, two of DeRosa’s attorneys, three law enforcement representatives, Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Justin Jones and DOC Deputy Director Laura Pitman.

Earlier this month, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 3-2 against granting DeRosa clemency earlier this month.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt filed a request March 25 with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to set DeRosa’s execution date after the U.S. Supreme Court denied the inmate’s final appeal.

In October 2000, Curtis Plummer, 73, and Gloria Plummer, 70, both of Poteau, were found dead in their home with multiple stab wounds and with their throats cut. About one year later, in October 2001, DeRosa was found guilty by a jury of his peers for the LeFlore County first-degree murders of the Plummers. He was subsequently sentenced to death.

According to Pruitt, DeRosa was briefly employed by the Plummers and told several friends on multiple occasions he thought the elderly couple would be an easy target to rob. DeRosa’s 21-year-old friend, Eric Castleberry, now 33, and also known as John E. Castleberry, agreed to help with the robbery. Castleberry’s 18-year-old friend, Scotty White, now 30, agreed to drive.

Pruitt said DeRosa and Castleberry were welcomed into the Plummer’s home, which at the time was equipped with a security system. Once in the home, Pruitt said, DeRosa and Castleberry brandished knives and, while the couple begged and struggled for their lives, DeRosa stabbed the Plummers multiple times and slit their throats, the AG’s office reported.

“DeRosa and Castleberry left the scene with $73 and the couple’s pickup truck,” Pruitt said. “The truck was ditched in a nearby lake.”

In exchange for a life sentence without the possibility of parole,Castleberry testified at DeRosa’s trial. Castleberry is serving his two life sentences at OSP in McAlester.

White was charged with accessory to first-degree murder after the fact and received two 25-year sentences, to be served concurrently, and the last seven years to be served as probation. He is serving time at the Lawton Correctional Facility and has since been convicted of escaping from the Department of Corrections. He is scheduled to be released on Nov. 10, 2026, and has a parole hearing set in August of 2015.

DeRosa was received into the Oklahoma Department of Corrections on Dec. 10, 2001. He had been housed in Oklahoma’s death row at OSP in McAlester.

http://mcalesternews.com/policecourt…xecuted-at-OSP

TEXAS- UPCOMING EXECUTION Kimberly McCarty JUNE 26, 2013 Executed

Update june 26

Update June 25

Texas’ highest criminal court has denied a request to block a Dallas County woman’s execution this week.

Kimberly McCarthy’s execution would be the 500th in Texas since the state resumed carrying out the death penalty in 1982. She contends black jurors were improperly excluded from her trial by Dallas County prosecutors and this wasn’t challenged by her lawyers.

But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin denied McCarthy’s request on Monday. The court said it didn’t consider the merits of McCarthy’s appeal because she should have raised her claims previously.

Maurie Levin, McCarthy’s attorney, said she is “reviewing the order and considering our options.”

McCarthy, 52, also would be the first woman put to death in the U.S. since 2010 if she receives lethal injection on Wednesday.

UPDATE JUNE 20

APPEAL FILED FOR KIMBERLY McCARTHY

DALLAS – Attorneys for Kimberly McCarthy filed an appeal Wednesday designed to block her execution.

The motion was made in the 292nd District Court of Dallas County, the site of McCarthy’s original trial on a charge of murdering her neighbor.

If McCarthy does not succeed in her appeals, she is slated to be executed Wednesday..

june 19 2013 source : http://www.kwtx.com

Kimberly McCarthy (Texas prison photo)

The lawyer for former nursing home therapist Kimberly McCarthy, 52, who’s scheduled to die next week for the murder of an elderly neighbor, has filed an appeal in an effort to block the execution.

McCarthy, who’s on women’s death row in Gatesville, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection next Wednesday.

If she does, she would be the first woman put to death in the U.S. since 2010 and the 500th prisoner executed in Texas since the death penalty resumed in 1982.

She was sentenced to die for the fatal stabbing, beating and robbery of her 71-year-old neighbor, retired college professor Dorothy Booth, in 1997.

McCarthy’s state court appeal contends black jurors were improperly excluded from her trial, and that her lawyers should have challenged the exclusions.

Lawyer Maurie Levin says the punishment should be stopped in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision backing another Texas prisoner who raised similar arguments about attorney competence.

I. BACKGROUND

On July 21, 1997 McCarthy entered the home of her 71-year-old neighbor Dorothy Booth under the pretense of borrowing some sugar and then “stabbed Mrs. Booth five times, hit her in the face with a candelabrum, cut off her left ring finger in order to take her diamond ring, and nearly severed her left little finger as well.” McCarthy v. State, No. 74590, 2004 WL 3093230, at *2 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004). McCarthy then took Mrs. Booth’s purse and its contents, along with her wedding ring and fled in her car. Later, McCarthy bought drugs with the stolen money, used the stolen credit cards, and pawned the stolen wedding ring. This was the last in a series of robbery-murders that McCarthy committed against her elderly female acquaintances.

On August 18, 1997, McCarthy was charged with capital murder for causing Booth’s death in the course of committing and attempting to commit robbery. (Vol. 1, State Clerk’s Record, “CR”, at 2-3) Her first conviction and death-sentence in 1998 was reversed on direct appeal by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (“CCA”). See McCarthy v. State, 65 S.W.3d 47 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001) (hereinafter “McCarthy I”). She was subsequently tried and found guilty of capital murder in November of 2002, which was affirmed, see McCarthy v. State, 2004 WL 3093230 (“McCarthy II”), and her petition for a writ of certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States. McCarthy v. Texas, 545 U.S. 1117 (2005). McCarthy filed her second state habeas action on August 24, 2004, which was denied (without an evidentiary hearing in the trial court) by the CCA on September 12, 2007. Ex parte McCarthy, No. 50,360-02, 2007 WL 2660306 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). On September 11, 2008, McCarthy filed in this court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus within the one-year limitations period.

Victim Dorothy Booth, 71.

MULTIMEDIA 2013

Nancy Mullane, a reporter for KALW Radio in San Francisco, is one of the few reporters to visit California‘s death row at San Quentin Prison. In the block she visited, there were 500 inmates, in 4-by-10 foot cells, stacked five tiers high. The cells are about the size of a walk-in closet. Many of the inmates have been on death row for over 20 years. Inmates can shower every other day. One of the inmates she met with, Justin Helzer, had stabbed himself in both eyes. He later committed suicide. California has the largest death row in the country with 727 inmates. No one has been executed in 7 years. Listen to the full segment here.

new animated film, The Last 40 Miles, will follow a death row inmate on his final journey from the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, to the death chamber in Huntsville. The film uses three forms of animation to tell the inmate’s story, from his tragic childhood to the moment he is being escorted to the lethal injection chamber. The script was written by freelance journalist Alex Hannaford and is based on interviews he conducted with death row inmates for news stories. Hannaford described why he used the metaphor of the trip to the death chamber: “It struck me a long time ago that this was the last thing these men see as they’re escorted from death row in Livingston to the death chamber at the Walls Unit in Huntsville. One of the last things they see is that big Texas sun rising over a vast lake. It’s quite breathtaking.” A trailer for the short film can be viewed here.

One For Ten is a new collection of documentary films telling the stories of innocent people who were on death row in the U.S. The first film of the series is on Ray Krone, one of the 142 people who have been exonerated and freed from death row since 1973. Krone was released from Arizona’s death row in 2002 after DNA testing showed he did not commit the murder for which he was sentenced to death 10 years earlier. Krone was convicted based largely on circumstantial evidence and bite-mark evidence, alleging his teeth matched marks on the victim. The film is narrated by Danny Glover.  All the films will be free and may be shared under a Creative Commons license.

CA InfographicThe Death Penalty Information Center has introduced a new series of graphs and quotes from prominent individuals, emphasizing various death penalty issues. These infographics have been displayed on Facebook and other outlets in the past few months. We are now offering them serially in a slide show on DPIC’s website. The graphics can be individually downloaded for use in various mediums. The slide show is available at this link. The infographics are grouped under a range of topics such as Costs, Race, and Innocence, with more information on each topic available on DPIC’s site. You can also find this collection of infographics on Facebook (click on any “photo” and it will enlarge, and you can scroll through the entire series) and on Pinterest. New infographics will be added in the coming months.

 

 

A new documentary released by the Constitution Project and the New Media Advocacy Project commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark 1963 decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, requiring states to appoint lawyers for indigent defendants in criminal cases. Prior to this decision, some states only provided attorneys in cases with special circumstances, like death penalty cases. Defending Gideon is narrated by Martin Sheen and includes interviews with national experts, including former Vice-President Walter Mondale, former N.Y. Times reporter Anthony Lewis, and death-penalty attorney Bryan Stevenson. Clarence Gideon was convicted, without an attorney, of breaking into a pool hall in Florida and stealing money. When he was retried with legal counsel, he was acquitted. The video underscores the importance of guaranteeing effective representation, especially if a person’s life is at stake.

BOOKS 2013

Women Who Kill Men: California Courts, Gender, and the Press examines the role that gender played in the trials of women accused of murder in California between 1870-1958. The authors trace the changing views of the public towards women and how these views may have affected the outcomes of the cases. Some defendants faced the death penalty and were executed; some were spared. Often the public was deeply fascinated with all aspects of the trial and punishment. The book, written by Gordon Morris Bakken and Brenda Farrington, provides in-depth details of 18 murder trials through court records and news coverage.

 

 

A new book by Kathleen Cairns explores the intriguing story of Barbara Graham, who was executed for murder in California in 1955, and whose case became a touchstone in the ongoing debate over capital punishment. In Proof of Guilt: Barbara Graham and the Politics of Executing Women in America, Cairns examines how different narratives portrayed Graham, with prosecutors describing her as mysterious and seductive, while some of the media emphasized Graham’s abusive and lonely childhood. The book also describes how Graham’s case became crucial to the death-penalty abolitionists of the time, as questions of guilt were used to raise awareness of the arbitrary and capricious nature of the death penalty.Cairns is a lecturer in the Department of History at California Polytechnic State University.  She has also written The Enigma Woman: The Death Sentence of Nellie May Madison (Nebraska, 2007) and Hard Time at Tehachapi: California’s First Women’s Prison.

A new international manual covering psychiatric and psychological issues arising in capital cases has been prepared by a team of forensic psychiatrists for use by attorneys, judges, and mental health officials. The Handbook of Forensic Psychiatric Practice in Capital Cases sets out model structures for psychiatric assessment and report writing for every stage of a death penalty case, from pre-trial to execution. It also discusses ethical issues, particularly with regard to an inmate’s competence to be executed. The handbook is published by The Death Penalty Project (DPP) and Forensic Psychiatry Chambers, both based in England. It is available online or in print from DPP.A new international manual covering psychiatric and psychological issues arising in capital cases has been prepared by a team of forensic psychiatrists for use by attorneys, judges, and mental health officials. The Handbook of Forensic Psychiatric Practice in Capital Cases sets out model structures for psychiatric assessment and report writing for every stage of a death penalty case, from pre-trial to execution. It also discusses ethical issues, particularly with regard to an inmate’s competence to be executed. The handbook is published by The Death Penalty Project (DPP) and Forensic Psychiatry Chambers, both based in England. It is available online or in print from DPP.

The Michigan Committee Against Capital Punishment has published a collection of over 40 years of testimony, brochures, and other information by attorney and death-penalty expert Eugene Wanger. The collection begins with the resolution from Michigan‘s 1962 constitutional convention banning capital punishment in the state. It includes Wanger’s testimony at numerous hearings opposing bills attempting to reinstate the death penalty, as well as brochures and short articles. The bound and boxed volume provides a comprehensive overview of the history of death-penalty legislation in Michigan. Through legislation in 1846, the state became first English-speaking government to abolish the death penalty for murder and lesser crimes.

 

A forthcoming book, Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys by Susannah Sheffer, explores the impact of the death penalty on defense attorneys with clients on death row. Through interviews with capital defenders, the author examines how attorneys try to cope with the stress of representing clients facing execution. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, said, “This is an important book. The death penalty’s impact is so much broader than we realize, and these attorneys are affected in ways that even I had not imagined. I am grateful to Susannah Sheffer for bringing these stories to light.” Richard Burr, a prominent capital defense attorney, called the book “a beautiful, heartbreaking, and above all uplifting story that makes an essential contribution to literature on the death penalty.” The book is available through Amazon and other outlets.

A new book by Professor Robert Bohm of the University of Central Florida examines the personal impact of capital punishment on those involved in the criminal justice system, beyond the victim and perpetrator of the crime. Bohm listened to those involved in all steps of the judicial process, including investigators, jurors, and the execution team. He has probed the effects of the death penalty on the families of both the murder victim and the offender. The book, Capital Punishment’s Collateral Damage, includes testimonials from members of each group, “allowing the participants…to describe in their own words their role in the process and, especially, its effects on them.” Bohm concludes that this “collateral damage is another good argument for rethinking the wisdom of the ultimate sanction.”

 

A new book, “Where Justice and Mercy Meet: Catholic Opposition to the Death Penalty,” offers a comprehensive discussion of Catholic teaching on capital punishment. It explores a wide range of issues related to the death penalty, including racism, mental illness, and economic disparities. The book is edited by Trudy Conway and David Matzko McCarthy, both professors at Mount St. Mary’s University, and Vicki Schieber–the mother of a murder victim. It includes a foreword by Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking. Joseph A. Fiorenza, Archbishop Emeritus of Galveston-Houston, said the book “is a treasure trove of information on the necessity and urgency to abolish an antiquated approach to capital crimes.”

US – UPCOMING EXECUTIONS JULY

July
10 TX Rigoberto Avila   Execution moved 2014
16 TX John Quintanilla EXECUTED
18 TX Vaughn Ross Executed
25 AL Andrew Lackey
31 TX Douglas Feldman

Court: Texas inmate’s decades-old sentence invalid

The life sentence given to a Texas man who has remained in prison for 33 years since being pulled off of death row isn’t valid, Texas’ highest criminal court said Wednesday, possibly paving the way for a new trial or the inmate’s release.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said once it overturned Jerry Hartfield’s murder conviction in 1980 for the killing of a bus station worker four years earlier, there was no longer a death sentence for then-Gov. Mark White to commute.

The opinion was given in response to a rare formal request by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to confirm the validity of its ruling overturning Hartfield’s conviction, in light of the governor’s 1983 commutation. The New Orleans-based federal court made the request, which upheld a lower state court’s ruling that the sentence was invalid.

“The status of the judgment of conviction is that (Hartfield) is under no conviction or sentence,” Judge Lawrence Meyers wrote in a decision supported by the court’s other eight judges. “Because there was no longer a death sentence to commute, the governor’s order had no effect.”

ID=2416367Hartfield, now 57, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1976 robbery and killing of a Southeast Texas bus station employee. The criminal appeals court overturned his murder conviction, ruling that a potential juror improperly was dismissed after expressing reservations about the death penalty.

White commuted Hartfield’s sentence in 1983 at the recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, and he has remained in prison since then, unaware until a few years ago that his case was in legal limbo. Court documents in his case described him as an illiterate 5th-grade dropout with in IQ of 51, although Hartfield says he’s learned to read and write while in prison.

In its failed appeal to the 5th Circuit, the state argued that Hartfield’s life sentence should stand because he missed a one-year window in which to appeal aspects of his case.

Neither the prosecutor’s office in Bay City nor Hartfield’s attorney, Kenneth R. Hawk II, immediately responded to phone messages Wednesday seeking comment.

During a prison interview last year, Hartfield told The Associated Press that he’s innocent, but that he doesn’t hold a grudge about his predicament, which his lawyer last year described as “one-in-a-million.”

“Being a God-fearing person, he doesn’t allow me to be bitter,” Hartfield said from prison.

Hartfield was 21 in June 1977 when he was convicted of murdering 55-year-old Eunice Lowe, a Bay City bus station ticketing agent who was beaten with a pickaxe and robbed. Her car and nearly $3,000 were stolen. Lowe’s daughter found her body in a storeroom at the station.

At the time, Hartfield, who grew up in Altus, Okla., had been working on the construction of a nuclear power plant near Bay City, about 100 miles southwest of Houston. He was arrested within days in Wichita, Kan., and while being returned to Texas, he made a confession to officers that he called “a bogus statement they had written against me.”

The alleged confession was among the key evidence used to convict Hartfield, along with an unused bus ticket found at the crime scene that had his fingerprints on it and testimony from witnesses who said he had talked about needing $3,000.

Jurors deliberated for 3½ hours before convicting Hartfield of murder and another 20 minutes to decide he should die.

source : Usa today